


In Threes

by something_pithy



Category: Outer Banks (TV)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Internal Monologue, M/M, Multi, Past Violence, Pogues Mackin on Pogues, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:53:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23814907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/something_pithy/pseuds/something_pithy
Summary: JJ, Pope, and Kie consider each other.
Relationships: JJ / Kiara / Pope, JJ Maybank/Kiara Carrera, JJ Maybank/Kiara Carrera/Pope Heyward, JJ Maybank/Pope Heyward, JJ/Kiara (Outer Banks), JJ/Pope (Outer Banks), Kiara Carrera/Pope Heyward, Kiara/Pope (Outer Banks)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 124





	In Threes

**Author's Note:**

> OK so, this is not explicitly a poly/triad fic, but I think that what exists between these three is more than just bestie camaraderie, and I'm pretty interested in exploring the tensions and emotions in here.
> 
> There are some vague spoilers in here for Outer Banks S1, but I don't really think anything too crazy. 
> 
> This has not been beta'd, so if you see some lapses here or there, hey... forgive a girl just tryna ride out the 'rona. :D

There were times when Kie recognized that despite the war she'd declared on capitalism, she hadn't yet looked closely enough at the role of the patriarchy in it.

She cleaned up their messes -- tended to cuts and bumps and bruises, told them straight up when they were being idiots, was the object of their projections. 

She also cried for them when they wouldn't, or couldn't; held them when they finally did; tried to hold back the violence that seemed to define their lives more and more every day. 

She took care of them in the ways they'd never learned how to. 

And turned down two out of three. 

The kiss was a debt; he had defended her, protected her -- but that tripwire had set off something in him that had nothing to do with her, had exposed his wounds for how deep they really were. 

But of course, because the patriarchy, she was the one who could see it best - the emotional knots in the tangle of the scholarship and the Kooks jumping him and ... her. 

It didn't matter that she hadn't jumped him, that he hadn't lost her, or anything else. He'd saved her life, and that was something, wasn't it? That was worth a kiss. 

She'd figure out what it meant later. 

\--- 

JJ might not be the best at thinking things through, but he sure as shit wasn't stupid.

Violence and him had met real early on, and like most of his earliest relationships, it was real love / hate between them. Passionate.

Well, Kie probably would say that violence didn't love or hate -- it just _wanted_. Violence was hunger, lust, the drive to propogate itself. Or some poetic shit like that. 

He knew that she hated it when they fought - any of 'em. Usually Pope stayed out of that kinda shit, because he was going somewhere, as he should. But she couldn't stand it when him or John B. (him, though, him, she always saw him) got into some scrap with a Touron or a Kook or whoever. That always got her pissed, and even though he knew better by now than to show it, more often than not it made him wanna grin at her and muss up her hair. She wasn't a Kook, but she was probably the cutest Pogue that ever was.

It was times like those you could tell she was adopted.

But when the shit was serious, when the shit was real -- there was no harshness in her, no front to cover the fear she felt for them, no anger at how low a priority their own safety was for them. No, when they were hurt -- for real hurt -- she took care of 'em. Took care of him.

And like he said, he might be a hothead, but he wasn't stupid. 

He knew there was a reason he called her mama when she was layin' into 'em, even if it was only his best guess at what that kinda care woulda looked like from a real mama.

He also knew it was almost worth getting the shit kicked out of him, that busted rib, bruises so deep they'd be there for a month or more, to feel her arms around him; to smell her shampoo and her skin and the clean of her -- nothin' too heavy or sharp, just somethin' fresh and light and pure in a way he'd never be. Almost worth it to press into that softness that you could miss because she was so fierce, and took no shit from nobody, and was a fighter. 

But it was there, and it was his, when he needed it most.

It was all of theirs -- she gave it free, no strings (he could almost believe it) -- but it was his. 

\---

It was easier not to talk about skin, but they all knew it was there. 

That boat -- that boat. The idiocy of that boat, the way he'd let his emotions overtake him -- the miscalculation of the possible outcomes -- if he'd even considered them -- was inevitable, and if he'd just waited, just thought it through, he'd have seen it. 

What he would never have seen, though, was JJ. 

JJ wasn't insane, per se -- but was impulsive and volatile enough to be in the ballpark. 

He'd definitely been channeling JJ with the boat plan (or maybe just channeling something that he normally kept locked away tight that JJ allowed to roam free), but either way he couldn't have expected JJ to step in for him, to lie for him, to take the blame.

And logically speaking, it made the most sense when you did the math. Not only did he have more to lose in this context than JJ did, but JJ would have many, many more opportunities to recover. Good-looking white dudes from the wrong side of the tracks got second chances -- maybe not third and fourth chances, like in Kooklandia, but at least second ones. 

Him -- dark-skinned, nappy-headed, quiet, geeky, working-class-slash-poor black kid from the cut? 

He knew he was lucky to have the one chance he'd gotten. 

Even still, people didn't just step in for each other like that. Throw their necks on the line like that. 

And as they took him away, the shame he felt at that flash of calculus that ran through his mind right before he nodded nearly broke him. And if he could have melded his body into JJ's to make him understand his gratitude and his sorrow, and to take the coming pain from him, well...

Of course he would have. It was only logical. 

\--- 

Kie, on the other hand, was a dreamer. 

All right, that was inaccurate. Kie was an idealist, an activist, a creative; an artist.

They called him "the smart one," but Kie could always keep up -- and her emotional intelligence made him look like he should be in remedial classes. There was a condescension, often enough, in the use of the word "dreamer," but it was just literal for her. She did dream: of a better world, of one that was fair and just. It seemed like she actually knew how lucky she was -- that she understood that their skin wasn't the thing they had in common; that made them the same.

That mattered. It mattered that she knew the difference, and it mattered that she never brought it up -- just honored it by not being hyper-apologetic or callous or blissfully ignorant. 

One could argue that the idealism was a matter of blissful ignorance, of privilege, but she wasn't an idiot. She understood what was wrong and she wanted to fix it. If that was the worst by-product of her privilege, then they got the best unKook in the OBX. 

(Of course they got the best unKook in the OBX.)

Even when he didn't agree with her assessments, he admired the way she saw things. Admired the way she saw him.

(More than admired.)

\-- 

There were times when Kie wanted to shake JJ until his teeth rattled. 

(Of course, he'd probably just laugh if she did.)

He was always ready for a fight, always ready to escalate, always getting them deeper into shit -- every single time -- with a laugh.

And of course, sometimes it was fun. OK, most times. He reminded them of what feels good about being bad, that being bad usually meant being free.

But he always took it to a place of destruction, and Kie believed in destruction being purposeful. 

Sometimes, she knew, JJ wanted to set shit on fire just to watch it burn.

She'd seen, though, the way the violence in him surged when his people were threatened; that offense brought the full force of his destructive power, even if it meant destroying himself. 

She'd seen, too, the pain that would flicker in his eyes for just before he did the craziest shit. 

And then after. 

When he rose up out of that hot tub, when she saw his mottled skin, his pretty face battered, dripping in anguish and fury and need to claim them, need for them to claim him in return --

she would have held him forever. 

\--

JJ's concept of "home" was deeply fucked.

Kie's arms, her body, her skin were soft and real and warm and comfort. He mighta thought he could have wrapped himself around her twice, but instead, he bent his head to her shoulder, shitfaced, crying like a kid, ashamed, and all she gave him was gentleness, her own strength when his was failing so hard.

But when Pope came in and wrapped his arms around both of them -- held both of them -- reinforced Kie's impassioned nurturing with his own solidity, the pillar that would hold them all up, that would protect them --

No shit he'd have done anything for any of them.

He couldn't say there'd been no hesitation to take the hit for Pope, but like most moves he made, it hadn't taken long for him to make up his mind. JJ just couldn't help fuckin' shit up -- his dad wasn't wrong on that one. Everything he touched turned to shit, and he knew if he hadn't been behind Pope, rilin' him up, he wouldna done that shit. Not that it hadn't been right -- not that that pompous little frosted-tips fuck hadn't deserved to have his boat sunk like a lead balloon. But just because somethin' was right didn't mean shit was gonna suddenly be fair, and when you took a shot at a Kook, they brought down the fist of every goddamn thing they could reach. 

Pope didn't deserve that. Pope was gonna be somebody; he already _was_ somebody. The fuck was one more line on JJ's rap sheet? 

Dad's reaction -- well, that was some shit. Not a surprise, but some shit. And even though he'd known it was coming, he hadn't guessed at how much it broke him down; at how little he had left in him to take this shit anymore.

Kie would fuss over any bump or bruise, no matter how pissed she was, and that woulda been enough. But Pope? 

Pope was the one to talk him outta shit, to tell him how shit went wrong -- so for him to just hold him up, lend his strength to Kie when he didn't have any left of his own... 

Shit. Maybe this was home.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a tumblr. It's been asleep for a long time. But you know, the 'rona might revive it. :D 
> 
> [something-pithy.tumblr.com](http://something-pithy.tumblr.com)


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